Why does he want to leave anyways??? He has just entered Pep's good books and is the first on the team sheet this season unlike last. If he wants peace in mind Madrid would be the last place to go to. After 3 games without a goal he would get booed and the fans would sing Mayoral's name lol

Bill... i said it before and let me repeat: Even if he's found 100% guilty of all the charges brought against him, Benz is facing zero jail time. He has no prior police record, he's not being charged with financially benefiting from the blackmail, he's not being charged with being a blackmailer, but accessory to blackmail which is far less serious. As several lawyers on Le Figaro and BFMTV have pointed out in France, at worse, he's looking at probation with no jail time. So this jail stuff is just incorrect and you shouldn't say stuff that's blatantly incorrect.

As far as Benz, i'm done. At best, he's a complete idiot. At worse, he's a complete idiot and a criminal... even if he doesn't go to jail. I'm not interested in defending complete idiots. This isn't the first incident with Benz. He's had multiple moronic incidents. You can't always be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As far as a CF replacement... i'd bring Higuain back. He's the best one that can be had. All the other top ones are not available.

Aubameyang is another one to consider. He's become a true CF this season as opposed to just a speed burner. With Lewandowski gone from Dortmund, he's flourished. With a far worse team, he's going to score more than Lewa ever did at Dortmund this season. He's at 19 goals and 4 assists in 16 games this season ALREADY.... and has only taken 66 shots so he's been very efficient to boot. On pace to score 50-60 goals and 10+ assists.

I think this will blow over soon and the french fa will make some sort of a statement saying that they feel Benz acted in the best interest of Valbuena just to stop the buzz before the Euros. We will then forget it ever happened and move on

So Benz played the victim card as well... saying, although he was in fact acting as an intermediary and was trying to convince Valbuena to deal with his friend, he didn't realize that this friend (the thug on his payroll) would financially benefit from it. Yeah right. It's like a NFL player beating up his girlfriend and saying it was self-defense, not assault.

He's done if this leak is true. There's no way he survives this on NT at least.

And btw, the reason why Benz got implicated by the police is that they also taped his friend striking a financial deal with the actual blackmailers... so then everyone involved with this "friend" became an accomplice or accessory.

Benz won't have to worry about him anymore. Given his criminal record, this friend is looking at 10 years in jail.

@halamadrid2 wrote:Morata has a drought with Juve right now. Its been going on for a couple of games now. I dont believe he is what we need. If we are to bring a striker in the only one ill accept is elpipa

Morata back would be like Pipita vs CR all over again. Benzema is needed for CR to function.

I agree with that. But Morata has not done anything for us yet to have Higgys privilege. If he came he would continue to be Ronaldos biatch and get shouted at for taking a selfish shot

I also agree Benz is needed with Ronaldo and he was also in excellent form but i feel it would be wrong for us to keep him if it turns out he was in cohort with the drug dealers. Not good for our image

jibers makes a good point....any striker we sign besides someone like aguero (whose injuries are something to worry about, considering the issues we have already faced ) or rooney, would mean having to sell cristiano or get a new winger, because most of the strikers on the market are scorers first and them making space for the winger to score isn't suited to them. i will say this though, and i said it at the beginning of the season; if this ends up being another failure of a season, i see the board looking to cash out on cristiano, benzema, isco and maybe even modric

the thought process i see the president and the board making is, if we fumble this season, this whole galactico 2 project that started in 09 was a failure and its time they scrap everything from top to bottom. if in 7 years we end up with little to show for it, then what's to say it'll suddenly improve? and florentino will scrap everything, even though the fault is partially his. so players are playing not just for titles this season, there's more at stake